"IS ANYBODY PAYING ATTENTION?" The mindful view of an educated Buddhist blogger who uses critical thinking, evidence, facts, and investigation to come up with his opinions instead of fear based ideologies.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

No one would check into a group home just to write an article but since I was there and saw it all, why not?

I don't know anyone who says the words "group home" without shuddering a little bit inside. None of them are how a person should want to live. Most clients are people who have NOWHERE else to go and no one to help them, some because heartless family members don't realize the severity of the loneliness and neglect experienced in there by human beings struggling to feel control over their lives after an illness or accident. There is one in Phoenix where the owners bought it from some well meaning people and stripped anything good from it and replaced it with furniture that is painful and incompetent/unskilled help. I was unfortunately tricked into going to one of those instead of being able to go home by a "case manager" at Life Center of Paradise Valley physical rehabilitation center. A man who used to be the owner of the place now refers clients there. The staff is great at providing tiny meals and getting people in bed on time. Only one person who works there as a "care giver" speaks English and the other ONE care giver is there as a friend of the owner. Neither has a car and can drive to go get food, supplies, and incidentals like smoke alarm batteries. The beds have no mattresses, only box springs. Making old, broken, crippled bodies lie on the coil springs reinjures these clients every night. This is designed to make their recovery time last longer and therefore bring the owners more money in insurance and self pay. But it isn't good for the clients. The owners (the owner and his wife) are idiots who have no idea how to run a group home. They bought it as a business investment and so run it on a shoestring budget without any thought towards the comfort of clients.

The owner walked into my room while I was naked and trying to get dressed and wouldn't leave while babbling and asking my about my "paperwork" as if I worked there and handled that. One of the care givers asked me later why I didn't call the police.

The owner and his wife walked into the living room of the house one day, turned on what I can only think of as 'the African version of MTV',(so loud that two of the clients were practically crying while holding their hands over their ears) and started doing a somewhat sexually provocative dance, in the middle of the room, with no regard for the clients. This isn't good business practice or patient care.

I was one of eight people there. My room was next to the washer and drier which sometimes were run at day or night, and had a smoke alarm with a burned out battery, chirping 24/7 and they expected me to sleep like that.

I have tried to call there to get some of my property back and still haven't managed to get anyone to answer the phone. You tell me, does anyone deserve to have to live like that, especiall seniors, and at least one of them a veteran who should be at the V.A.?

Assisted living implies that nurses, competent care givers, and other staff are there to provide Long Term Care facility management instead of this bunch of crap. If you call the main number for contact at 480 264 6870, you get the previous owner, ROMAN (pronounced RO-MAUN) , and he is obviously still in place to give the place an semblance of respect that they don't deserve.

I was told (by Anne Marie at the "Living Center of Paradise Valley")that this place had physical therapy and should have known when I asked, that when I asked about that and Roman kept repeating the same mantra, "Sir, this is $800 a month and you won't find anything cheaper." and he wouldn't answer my question that I should have gone directly to home from the rehabilitation center. Anne Marie kept insisting that I needed something in the way of this group home, since my condo had stairs. This was stupid, as I climbed the stair with supervision 2 weeks later with minimal supervision.

When I asked Roman how to contact the house directly he gave me the number (602)626-8257. and when I called there, I got an error recorded message that said, "The customer you are trying to call is not in service at this time."

I would like to add that Life Care Center of Paradise Valley and John C. Lincoln Hospital gave me the best of care considering my injury.

About Me

I am an Arizona native, born and raised in Phoenix, although I have lived for brief times in other places. I am what one would call a Centrist. I don't believe in radical left or right stances and refuse to let the low information, regressive, right wing people call me "liberal" since that would be left of reality based on opinion, and I believe in facts and research of evidence.